Roll Crimping

[Jay Oliver]

I have placed an order with Reloaders Network for a 10, 12, 16 and 20 crimpers and some other accessories. The BPI one I had for 20 gauge just didn’t work(for me anyway) the 16 gauge from Precision is okay, but not great in my opinion. I have original hand crank crimpers for 10 and 12 which work well. It will be nice to have some quality tools for this.

However, I just bought a nice little English sxs 12 gauge 2” gun and the hand turn crimper will not crimp shells that short. The shortest I could go is 2 1/8” which work well in the gun and I can still put a nice roll crimp on them with my hand turn crimper. I am looking forward to real nice drill roll crimper so I'll be able to make 2" shells.

On that “new” 2-inch 12 gauge, I have been having so much fun with it. I had to make some shells for it and since there is not a lot of room they need to be roll crimped. Here are some I made with an original hand turn roll crimper.

The 50 on the left are new cut hulls and my 9 year old daughter likes to decorate the overshot cards. The upper right are once fired 2 1/8” shells that I have already shot once. And the bottom right are cut once fired 2 ½ RSTs. We had fun making these…

I am using a Gualdini light brush wad, 3/4oz of shot and 14.5 grains of Red Dot. I’ll likely drop down to 14 grains when I reload these at 2”(just so I can have a little more room in the case and make a real 2” shell). The RST 3/4oz 2” is going at 1100fps, so I think I will be around that velocity.

[edgarspencer]

The things we do to put a smile on our face. Rolling your own may not set the record for production, but they are nice to look at, yield lower pressures, and, what I like the most, is that it gives you more case capacity for powder, wad, and shot combinations. Why use up valuable hull length simply to get a folded crimp?
I started rolling many years ago, and stuck pretty much to 12 ga., mostly because the new tools on the market didn't give satisfactory results. The tool from the Reloadlers Network changed that.
2 1/2" 28ga was limited to 5/8 ounce, but roll crimping allowed for 3/4 ounce, and the performances, as tested by a fellow member on his chronograph, yields a nice 1175 fps load, with noticeably less recoil than a factory Fiocchi 2 3/4" load.

[edgarspencer]

I'm not artistically gifted, so I get inexpensive self-inking stamps for the overshot cards.